Cantare
by elan0rjoy
Summary: "'Sing…' I manage to gasp. 'Sing, sing, sing' I am shouting at her and I hate myself for it. But then the terror, the rage, grips me again and it's all I can do to keep pounding at the floor." Post-Mockingjay. Peeta has his first flashback. Book-centric.


**Author's Note: **I wrote this ages ago, never intending to post it. And then I (finally) saw Catching Fire and nearly drowned in Hunger Games muses. So I revisited this and I'm posting it because it makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy to. The Hunger Games does not belong to me, nor do the lyrics of the song _Danny Boy_.

_Cantare_

I had been back for almost two weeks before the attack. We'd fallen into a pattern of sorts by then. We wouldn't always spend the day together, but I'd come over in the afternoon and start baking the bread for dinner in her kitchen. Sometimes she'd help me, sometimes she'd sit in the kitchen and we'd try to talk. Most of the time we were silent. I asked her once if she was comfortable around me yet, if she'd rather that I stayed away for a while. The look she'd given me in response had been so tortured, so afraid, that I hadn't dared stay away.

It was Greasy Sae's night off and we had just finished dinner and were cleaning up the kitchen. She was washing and I was drying, even though she insisted that she be the one to clean up since I had cooked. I can't usually place the triggers, a loud noise, a wailing child, too bright light, it's never the same thing twice. Snow's final punishment for me and for Katniss.

"Katniss…" I can barely manage to gasp her name between my clenched teeth before the flashback overcomes me. She spins around from the sink and drops the bowl in her hands when she sees my face. The breaking glass, the sound of her panicked voice, they bring me back to the dark cell, the flickering screen, the impossible pain. My mind morphs her concerned voice into a cacophony of vile insults, threats, things that feel so real that I am overwhelmed with fear and intense anger that burns in my veins.

She has frozen in place. I force myself to look at her, to see beyond my mind's superimposed vision of her as terrifying and deadly. Her eyes are wide, wild. She doesn't know what to do. I have taken her by surprise and she is paralyzed. It would be so easy to kill her in this moment. I have a heavy frying pan in my hand. It would be easy. She would deserve it.

"NO!" I am shouting and I throw the pan, vaguely hear it smash into something off to my left.

For a moment the veil drops and I see her, really see her. She is small and terrified and beautiful. And then my vision begins to shimmer again and low, guttural sound emerges from deep in my chest. I drop to my knees, put my head on the floor, beat the ground, furious with myself, with her, with the world. I try to focus on my breathing, but can't.

"Sing…" I manage to gasp. "Sing, sing, sing!" I am shouting at her and I hate myself for it. But then the terror, the rage, grips me again and it's all I can do to keep pounding at the floor.

"Oh D-Danny boy, the pipes...the pipes…" Her voice is so soft I can barely hear it and it's breaking, cracking over the words. "...are calling." I hear her gasp, choking on tears. "From glen to glen, and down the mountain side."

I've heard her sing this before. During her trial, when she was locked in her old room in the Capitol. I used to watch the video surveillance of her with Dr. Aurelius. It was part of my therapy. At first, it didn't do as much good as he'd hoped. I couldn't be afraid of the girl who crawled on the floor looking for her morphling tablets, but I could still feel rage towards her, disdain. I had saved her life, yet again, and she was trying to throw it away, and then failing. It was pitiful.

But when she pulled herself together, when she started to sing. It was like the world shifted on its axis. My therapy began to go much more smoothly. The more she sang, the easier it got. Her sweet, rich voice was a balm to my agonized soul.

And it was acting in the same fashion now.

"...The summer's gone, and, oh, the roses falling." I go still, force myself to feel the cool kitchen floor against my forehead. Try to focus on my breathing. I'm shaking with the effort. "Still you, still you, must go and I must bide,"

"But come ye back," Her voice swells over the words, a demand from the lips of an angel, "when summer's in the meadow." And then her voice breaks, catching on the notes as they morph into a plea. "Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow."

My breathing is less of a struggle now. I can hear her voice clearly as it rises and falls over the words. I know the lyrics that are coming and my heart flutters in anticipation. I can delineate my real feelings from those superimposed by Snow's torture. I remember how much I love her and I am dying to hear the last line in the song.

"Tis I'll be here, in sunshine or in shadow."I slowly roll over to my side, curled up tightly. She is on her hands and knees too, hunched over, arms wrapped tightly about her middle, as if she's trying to keep herself from falling apart. There is nothing shiny about her now, except for the tears sparkling on her cheeks.

"Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so." The last note rings in the air, full of promise and unspoken questions. It is enough to ground me into the present, to give me hope for the future. The flashback, and its accompanying terror and rage, is over, and I am spent. She senses all of this, and slowly, ever so slowly, reaches out to me. Her hand is in my hair, brushing it back with a touch as soft as butterfly wings.

Eventually, the remnants of her song fades from the air and I am able to shake off the lingering tension the love song has built in my chest. I sit up slowly, forcing myself to focus on her face, on her still-panicked eyes. She lets me pull her into my arms and bury my face into her neck. We stay like that for a long time, neither one moving for fear of breaking the spell that has allowed us peace for the time being.

When I disentangle myself from her it is well into the evening. The fire has burned down to embers and room is lit by moonlight. The bowl she dropped still lies shattered on the floor a few feet in front of us, and the pan I threw has made a hole in the wall. I thank God that I had the presence of mind to get it out of my hands before I could do her damage.

I stand up, embracing the pins and needles in my legs, grateful for another element that links me to reality. I help her to her feet and pull her into my arms again.

"I'm sorry about the wall," I whisper into her hair.

"I'm sorry about the bowl," she murmurs into my neck. And then, after she's pulled away, "It'll all get cleaned up eventually."

I know she is talking about more than just the kitchen and I know she is right. Eventually, it all will be cleaned up: the kitchen, our lives, the world, even our broken minds.


End file.
